Fight for Freedom
by mooseonaplane01
Summary: This is a story about a small group of gladiators who let nothing stand in their way in their fight for freedom.
1. Chapter 1: The Arena

The sound of metal hitting metal resonated across the arena training grounds. Two men clad in leather armor were practicing swordplay for the gladiator tournament tomorrow. Me, Alex and Nicole were also training, but for something completely different.

"Hey, Matt, you've watched them battle thousands of times, mind paying attention to the plan?" Alex said, sounding a little annoyed.

I looked back to my friends and listened for about two seconds before I had a flashback about how I got here. It was a typical Minecraft morning, and my village was up and working. Farmers farming, priests preaching, and Smiths smithing. There were minecarts with chests coming and going on the shipping yard, men unload bales of wheat and boxes stuffed with coal and iron. In the distance a banner with a crown and crossed blades waved in the breeze. Two armoured med approached the village, chains in their hands. The left one raised a hand and the village fell silent.

"The kings has requested 5 young men to fight in the gladiatorial arena. If you do not give them up peacefully, we are permitted to use force." The village stood quietly, and you could feel the tension in the air.

"So be it! You wish to ignore us, then we will choose the sacrifices ourselves!" The men walked along, roughly grabbing four boys and putting shackles on their wrists. I crouched behind a box, watching as they searched for another boy. One of the men locked eyes with me and made a cruel smile. He strided over and picked me up by my collar.

"Thank you for your participation," he announced, "Have a good day." I was shackled and roped to the other boys and the soldiers. The village stood silent as we trudged up a hill and away from our home.

"Matt. Matt! MATT!" Nicole shouted, "What are you doing? Pay attention!"

"Okay, okay. I already know most of it anyway." I replied, a little steamed at her for yelling at me.

"All we have to do is go through this hatch, climb through these pipes and then were free. No more gladiators." Alex said.

"Got it." me and Nicole said. We grabbed our bags from a hole we dug and walked up to the minecarts.

"Ladies first." I said, getting a punch from Nicole. "What? Don't ladies_ like_ being first?"

"Not when it may be first to DIE!" she said.

"Oh yeah. Forgot." I said in a small voice. By the time we got to the arena, it was turning dark. Zombies and skeleton roamed outside the iron bars protecting the track. Occasionally one would fall in a puff of smoke with an arrow embedded in it's skull.

"We need to be careful of the castle's archers _and_ the monsters? They don't make this easy, do they?" I whispered. We walked on in silence, finding our waiting room.

"Let's get our gear on." Nicole said. We all slipped on armor according to our warrior class. Alex was a tank, with diamond armor to take hits and equipped with a stone sword. Nicole was a rogue, with a diamond sword and leather armor for swiftness and deadliness. I was a special warrior known in the arena as a 'King's Guard' I was balanced with attack and defense, with an Iron sword and armor.

An announcer said, "Welcome to the gladiatorial games!" The crowd roared in response.

"Our first battle, a 'Fisher' versus a 'Phoenix'. This is going to be a _great_ battle!" Me and my pals decided to wait for the second battle to leave, to arouse a little less suspicion. After waiting about 10 minutes, we heard a gasp from the crowd. Then we heard a humongous roar of joy as the king gave the thumbs down. This was permission for a gladiator to kill another when having the right opportunity.

"Wasn't that an outstanding battle! Next up, a 'King's Guard' versus a 'Sharpshooter'" the announcer said. "I can't wait!" Somebody came up behind me and said "You're up kid." I swallowed my fear and walked through the gate into the arena. I saw a scrawny kid walk out the other side, a glowing bow in his hands. _Where'd he get an enchanted bow?!_ I thought.

"3..2..1..BATTLE!" Then the sharpshooter took his aim. I ran in an arc to the left, him spinning slowly to keep his mark. I watched archers before and before most of them shot, their eye or hand twitched. His hand holding the bow twitched and I held up my blade. _Tink!_ The arrow bounced off my sword. Nothing special seemed to happen so I figured he had a power enchantment. My hands started to feel hot, so I glanced at them. My sword had turned into a glowing chunk of molten iron. _He has a FIRE enchantment?! Not fair!_ I charged toward him as he released a low powered arrow, which I sidestepped. I roared and it startled him enough for him to make a few arrows fall out of his quiver. He didn't know whether to pick them up or to leave them so he panicked and stood there in confusion. I smacked the flat of my blade into his face, leaving a shiny burn. I pinned him down with my sword and looked towards the king. He pointed his thumb down. I lifted my blade and drove through his skull so he could have a quick, painless death. My sword had cooled down, but was now red and glowing purple. No matter how many times I cleaned it, it stayed this way.

"From now on, your name is Inferno" I said to my sword. It glowed a bit brighter in response. I found my friends and gave them the signal that it was time to leave. Like, _now_. Nicole used her awesome ninja skills to pick the lock to the sewer grate and Alex used his crazy strength to rip it out. We climbed down the ladder into darkness that led to what we hoped was freedom.

* * *

Types of gladiators in this chapter

Tank-

Gear- Diamond armor

Weapons- Stone sword

* * *

Rogue-

Gear- Leather armor

Weapons- Diamond sword

* * *

Balanced-

Gear- Iron armor

Weapons- Iron sword

* * *

Fisher-

Gear- Fishing pole, cobwebs, leather armor/none

Weapons- wooden/stone sword

* * *

Phoenix-

Gear- Gold armor

Weapons- Iron sword-Fire aspect 1

* * *

Sharpshooter-

Gear- leather armor

Weapons- Bow-any level I enchantment/none, 64 arrows


	2. Chapter 2: The Escape

"OW!" It echoed in the vast sewers.

"Sorry!" I said.

"Be more careful next time!" Nicole replied, cradling her injured hand. We arrived at the bottom of the ladder and found ourselves in some sort of sewer. There was a few scattered redstone torches which provided just enough light to see, but not enough to keep monsters from spawning.

"We got company," Alex announced. We pulled out our weapons and hacked away at the small pack of approaching zombies .

"Don't worry Matt, you're safe. Zombies chase brains." Nicole said, slashing off a zombie's arm.

"Ha ha," I replied "Very funny." After getting rid of the swarm, my friends were exhausted, but I felt fine. Inferno seemed to be glowing a little brighter, but I ignored it.

"C'mon guys. No time to sit around," I said.

"How are you not tired?" Alex questioned.

"I'm just tougher than you wimps," I said, knowing that they couldn't do anything about it. After about 5 minutes, they got up and started walking towards an iron door. Alex shouldered it open and we continued on, fighting a few more zombies on the way. We made our way towards some iron bars and saw that it was now daytime. We were too tired to be excited about finding the way out and fell asleep on the ground.

I woke up and looked around. My friends were asleep, so I decided it was my job to find some more food. I chopped the bars apart and walked into the outside world, which was slowly getting darker. I saw a pig, who looked at me with pleading eyes, telling me not to kill him. I slaughtered the creature, slashing my sword through his neck. Then I went and disposed of his family.

"Hey guys, got you some food," I said to my awakening friends.

"Thanks," Alex said, still half-asleep and ate his pork raw. Nicole pulled a furnace from her pack a placed it on the ground. I put all the meat in and cooked it with some logs I grabbed. After eating breakfast, we grabbed our bags and weapons and went outside. It was now completely dark and there were monsters everywhere. A few mobs suddenly fell with arrows embedded in various parts of the bodies, reminding us of the archers on the castle's walls.

"How do we get by?" I asked. We stood there in silence.

"Wait until day when their guard is let down?" Alex suggested.

"We could stick by the walls until we get to the woods," Nicole said.

"Good idea, but the monsters might notice us and start attacking us," I said, "and if a creeper finds us..."

"Boom," Alex finished, "No more us." We stood in silence. Again.

"Wait, how did you get the pork if the guards were up there? Wouldn't they see you?" Nicole suddenly asked.

"They would. Unless...their shift ended!" I exclaimed, "All we have to do is wait until dawn, then make a run for it!"

"I hope you're right," Nicole said. _Yeah. Me too._

We stood at the sewer's exit watching the moon slowly sink down to the horizon. As soon as the first rays of the sun came out, we ran. A few monsters leaped at us, but they didn't live long enough to do much else. A skeleton shot at me, and I swung my sword at it._ Well that was stupid. They stand like, 10 feet away._ I looked to see where it was but all I saw was a few bones in the distance._ Hmm. I wonder..._ I shook the thought out of my head. _Ridiculous. Swords can't shoot fire. Not even glowing purple ones._ We ran a few more feet and made it to the relative safety of the woods.

"We may have gotten past the archers, but we're not out of the woods yet," Alex said. Me and Nicole groaned.

"Too soon?" he asked. We didn't have to walk too far until we heard the infamous hiss of a creeper.

"Run!" I shouted and was thrown to the ground, dirt blocks raining down on my back. I looked at my buddies and saw that they were fine, except for Nicole's finger, which was purple and swollen.

"That doesn't look good. Eat this pork, it'll help it heal faster," I said, handing her a pork chop. She munched on it and instantly her finger started cracking and popping, reverting back to it's original position. She shifted her sword to her other hand and we continued to walk. We saw about 10 wolves on our walk and of course Nicole, being the kind of girl she is, had to hug and cuddle with each one. After we found yet another wolf, Nicole saw a few bones sticking out of my pack. Before I could say no, she took them out and ran up to the wolf, offering it a bone. It took the bone warily, finally being tamed after the sixth bone.

"I'm going to name you Snowball and we're gonna have so much fun together!" Nicole said, going on and on about what they would do together. I had been ignoring the wolves so much I didn't see that it was a white wolf until after she named it.

"If that wolf is white, we must be nearing a taiga." I said.

"Yeah, you are," a voice behind us said, "and the King's bounty hunters are approaching you."


End file.
